24 October 2011

In Vienna. The Glasgow School

How the group of artists known as the Glasgow School became the talk of the Eighth Secession is also a story of Josef Hoffmann. The Viennese architect produced the exhibitions of the Vienna Secession in its early years and, although we may not realize it, he invented the "designed" exhibition. What better way to show the work of a group of artists than through a multi-media installation?

The Glasgow School had designed several stylish tearooms, spaces where women could socialize in public. Margaret Macdonald, Frances Macdonald, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Herbert McNair , two sisters and their husbands, were known collectively as 'The Four.' The Mackintoshs were the leaders, Margaret specialized in painting and glass art; Charles was an architect.

Several times Josef Hoffmann had visited England to study the Arts & Crafts design and it was his invitation that brought the Glasgow group to Vienna. The tearoom installation at the Eighth Secession used furniture designs from their Argyle Street Tearoom, including the Mackintosh 'rose' high-backed chair. Critics and the public agreed in their praise of its airy charms and, as happened with Fernand Khnopff's work in 1898, local museums and collectors bought. Interestingly, The Seven Princesses - after Maurice Maeterlinck now in the Museum of Applied Culture, Vienna predates Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh's masterly Mysterious Garden (Scottish National Gallery).

Critics are still debating how much the visiting Scots influenced Viennese modernism but by 1900 the curvilinear style had become like the child who doesn't realize how tired she is and keeps on running around until she drops. The salutary effects of applied geometry were ready to make things new again. This time to be mixed with elements of medieval revival and recently discovered Japanese arts of the floating world.

Historienenrrant, a lucky thing for you that Hoffmann invited the Scots to Vienna and that museums bought their work. Vienna - the zoo - has pandas so, in my opinion, you are doubly lucky. I think the Chinese will be sending a pair of pandas to Scotland next year, too.

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Why The Blue Lantern ?

A blue-shaded lamp served as the starboard light for writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's imaginary journeys after she became too frail to leave her bedroom at the Palais Royale. Her invitation, extended to all, was "Regarde!" Look, see, wonder, accept, live.

"I think of myself as being in a line of work that goes back about twenty-five thousand years. My job has been finding the cave and holding the torch. Somebody has to be around to hold the flaming branch, and make sure there are enough pigments." - Calvin Tompkins